Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Giveaway: Libby's Gift Pack

Remember a few posts ago I wrote about the wonderful afternoon I spent with some fellow local mama bloggers? We put together 30 meal kits for families in need located in the local Pittsburgh area and enjoyed a lunch together talking about how we all do our best to have family dinners and quality time together around our dinner tables. We will be continuing our conversation TODAY (September 28th, 2010) at 1 PM ET via a text based chat. You can join us here before noon if you're not able to make it at that time, leave a question or suggestion and then feel free to follow up with our conversation later in the day! OR feel free to join us LIVE at 1 PM! Hope to see some new faces there!

Well, now it's time for me to give back to YOU! It's giveaway time!

I will be giving away a Libby's tote bag with Libby's product, a state-of-the-art can opener and a copy of Hanna Keeley's book "Total Mom Makeover: The Six-Week Plan to Completely Transforming Your Home, Health, Family, and Life".

How you can enter:

Required for Entry -
* Leave one comment below sharing your tips about how you and your family are "getting back to the table", INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS SO THAT I CAN CONTACT YOU IF YOU WIN!

Bonus Entries (you'll get ONE EXTRA ENTRY for each of these below, just be sure to leave a separate comment for each of them noting what you did AND INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS!) -
*Create your own virtual can drive HERE. Once you've created it, live a comment here with a link to your can drive INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS.

19 comments:

Nancy
said...

We browse, gather and buy food items at the farmer's market. We then also cook and eat them together at home. It is fun, educational, healthy, and inexpensive. Everyone is more likely to eat and enjoy when we have had this experience together. Give it a try!

Fortunately, I grew up in a house that was big on family dinners. My dad always took the phone off the hook and we ate at the table and there was no eating in front of the tv. I guess that really stuck with me as my babe has been at the table since she was a wee little thing. Part of me feels like that contributed to her being a more adventurous eater (on the days she wasn't being picky) and she LOVES to help pick things out at the store and always gets to pick something SHE wants at the farmers market. She's been sitting up on the counter as I prep dinner, too. And while our phones are always on these days, meals are electronics-free!

We cook together and take turns cooking and cleaning up and our 6 year old daughter helps either with the cooking, making salad, setting the table, or making dessert. During dinner we talk about our day and answer a question from a set of table talk cards. One of the recent questions was what TV family is your family most like? the answers were amusing.

We always eat together at the table. We don't have a dining room, our dining table is in our small livingroom. We don't have a tv in there, just 2 couches and a dining table. We put vinyl under the table for easy clean up. I think it's important to eat together. We eat all 3 meals there together. I get the kids involved with preparation when possible too.

One tip is to remember that even if you don't have the time to make the best meal, you can still make it a family meal. Just because you ordered a pizza doesn't mean you have to go off to separate rooms or corners to eat it!

I have been outlining a full dinner menu each weekend for the following week so that everyone knows beforehand and can participate in dinner! We also don't allow cell phones at the dinner table any longer!

We're big on meal planning so we aren't wasting time during the week trying to think of what to make for dinner. We have a garden during the summer (and I'm working on my first fall garden) that helps a lot. We're also fans of turning all technology off so we can focus on each other at the dinner table.